Hossam Badrawi Official Website
October Victory, and Hope for a New Victory
Whoever lived and remembers the October 73 victory must now be over fifty years old.
There are heroic deeds that are not talked about and that our youth do not know, such as the heroism of the Egyptian people whose army returned defeated, a harsh and humiliating defeat in 67, which forced the country’s president to resign as a result of the failure. The people did not accept the resignation, not in support of the person, as I saw it at the time, but as a symbol of Egypt’s refusal to accept defeat.
I remember jokes and mockery of the Egyptian army in the whole world and the Arab countries. In fact, the Egyptian military uniform became an area of disdain in word and deed, with the humiliation of the migration of citizens living on the canal line to the interior of the country by the millions.
Here appeared the civilized metal of the Egyptian people who resisted the negative wave directed at the army and raised its morale, and every educated certificate holder joined the army without knowing when he would leave for civilian life, and the people accepted the immigrants from their homeland, in their homes and schools, and this people restored the prestige and status of their army.
This is a battle that no one talks about now, and there are no memories or movies about it.
The Egyptian people revived their army after the defeat, and the Egyptian army revived its people with its victory in October.
We must know that there are lessons learned that we remember and mention in October and that have meaning now.
First: The army and the people are one system, and without the support of civil society for its armed forces, there would not have been victory, and all attempts to divide the country by separating the army from the people and dividing the people into ideological, religious and geographical categories will fail with the civilized awareness of this great people.
Second: If we had entered the October War without a fundamental change in the concept of managing the military institution and emphasizing the professionalism of the military army, and not dispersing it with civil work and coordination between civil, diplomatic and military work, there would not have been victory. We learned at the time that we cannot repeat doing the same thing in the same way and expect different results, so the concept of military work that led to defeat changed to a new concept that led to victory.
Third: There is no victory without mistakes and sacrifices, and what is not documented is as if it did not happen. As we analyze defeat, we must analyze victory. The defeat of 67 was harsh, harsh, harsh, but change happened and experience accumulated to achieve the victory of 73.
When the 67 war happened, I was in high school, and we were young people under a false sense of power and waiting to enter Tel Aviv at the end of June 5. Hypocrisy deceived us to power, and fear deceived us from expressing a free opinion, and the truth was absent in the absence of accountability, and hypocrisy spread and the people were in a state of false euphoria until we woke up and our army was fleeing back, and the enemy was in the sky of Cairo.
A lesson I will never forget, it created in my political conscience a rejection of one-sided thinking, or believing what has no proof. It created in my mental makeup a rejection of hypocrisy and a desire for transparency and disclosure and a belief in the importance of the rotation of civilian power. .
A lesson I am thinking about now in 2024, fifty-one years after the October War, and 56 years after the horrific defeat of the Egyptian army and the wonderful stance of the Egyptian people in supporting its construction and the return of dignity to it.
What is the modern civil state that we are talking about, and what are its foundations, and its concept so that we do not fall into a new defeat after half a century.
The entire Egyptian people who approved a constitution that begins with this phrase:
“We are now writing a constitution that completes the construction of a modern democratic state, whose government is civil.”
“The political system is based on political and partisan pluralism, the peaceful transfer of power, the separation and balance of powers, the correlation of responsibility with power, and respect for human rights and freedoms, as stated in the constitution.”
This is the introduction to the constitution and its fifth article, which the Egyptian people approved by an overwhelming majority in 2014. No amendments were made to this introduction or Article Five in 2019, as happened to others. The constitution is our reference in managing and preserving Egypt.
An educated young woman said to me: What is the civil state that you mean and that the constitution means?
Her colleague said: Why do we want a civil state in the first place, and why do we call it this name that makes it the opposite of a religious state or a military state, which raises sensitivities without meaning.
I said:
There are several principles that must be available in a civil state, and if one of them is missing, the conditions of that state will not be fulfilled, the most important of which is that that state is based on peace, tolerance, acceptance of others, and equality in rights and duties, so that it guarantees the rights of all citizens, not as a gift from the ruler, but as a right that he is obligated to preserve.
One of the most important principles of the civil state is that no individual in it is subject to the violation of his rights by another individual or another party. There is always a higher authority, which is the authority of the state through effective mechanisms of the law, which individuals resort to when their rights are violated or threatened with violation. The people’s government is the one that applies the law and prevents the parties from applying forms of punishment themselves.
One of the principles of the civil state is trust in the various contracting and exchange processes, as the civil state does not have arbitrariness or breach of contracts in favor of one group over another. The civil state is characterized by equal opportunities between citizens and institutions on declared foundations. The civil state is also characterized by the principle of respect for the law and democracy, which in essence prevents the state from being taken by force by an individual, elite, family, or ideological tendency. Power is transferred within a framework of individual freedom of expression, candidacy, and election. All its institutions are placed within the scope of accountability, and the executive, supervisory, and judicial authorities are balanced, so that no authority encroaches on another. This is exactly what led to Egypt’s horrific defeat in 1967 and the chaos that followed after 2011. As for why we want a civil government according to the definition I mentioned, it is because the transfer of power, oversight of state institutions, and the balance between authorities is the protector of individuals and their rights mentioned in the constitution. The possibility of transferring power puts every ruler before the moment of leaving power and holding the masses accountable, and he learns a lesson and does not encroach on rights or dominate in government.
The opposite of civil rule is religious rule that uses religion and belief to achieve political powers and does not recognize citizenship except for those who follow its religion. It is a dictatorial rule armed with religion..
The other opposite is any dictatorial regime armed with intimidation of the people to impose the will of a group of them to rule.
The two share one thing in common, which is that power is not transferred peacefully except through revolutions, coups, military defeats, demolition, or assassinations.
Dictatorial rule, by the nature of its philosophy, relies on force and obedience to impose its will, but more dangerous than it is dictatorial rule that covers itself with a civil cloak, which is the rule that prevents civilians directly or indirectly from reaching power, and aborts party and political work so that civil forces have no value in elections, and interferes in civil rule by controlling civil institutions, so that the affairs of the country do not proceed or a decision is taken except with their approval, and the balance between the authorities is disturbed, and all state institutions are marginalized.
The danger is that over time, the argument for remaining in power and stopping the transfer of power becomes linked to the absence of an alternative or its incompetence, which is the natural result of marginalizing civil state institutions.
Society often loses confidence in civil institutions, and a feeling and certainty arises that civil society is weak, without a system and is not fit to run the country.
All of this may happen in one country or some of it, and events may lead to it, but history says that all dictatorial regimes, no matter how much they accomplish in moments, are like someone building a sand castle on the beach, and they usually end up in violations of freedoms, coups, wars, revolutions or assassinations that destroy what has been accomplished and return the country to square one again.
The defeat of the homelands in the present will not be military, but intellectual, economic and political, and so that Egypt does not fall prey to fifth-generation wars.
Let us call on the people and provide them with opportunities to adhere to science and knowledge, and prepare our youth for training and obtaining the skills required by the future. On the political level, we protect the constitution and emphasize the necessity of the peaceful transfer of power and accountability of the executive authority.
My children, the October lesson is great and its results can be applied today by insisting on a diversity of opinions, freedom of expression, respecting differences that reveal the truth, building not destroying, positivity, working as an integrated team, and benefiting from the energies of all the people’s institutions… without specialization or discrimination.
